Sometimes I have a serious case of artistic deja vu. And ever since Taylertots became a prolific artist, I’ve been having more and more of it. It’s not that Taylor is necessarily a bad artist (she’s improved quite a bit), or even that she has nothing that has an original concept or look — but rather that when Taylor finds an influence, she runs with it.
I’m concerned about the people who reblogged this, stating it’s only referencing other art and that I somehow condone near-replication without giving credit where credit is due.
I specifically said: “I’d advise at least sourcing from where the inspiration came from.” That doesn’t mean, “Oh I’m okay with this!” I’m not okay with this. The only reason I don’t make a stink about these is because “I don’t want 8000 people suddenly going after taylortots with any ill-intent”. (And for anyone reading this, I still don’t want anyone to go after taylortots because this is entirely my fault for not confronting her about it when I’d discovered my discomfort with it. Unfortunately, other people caught it first.)
On that note, if taylortots is reading this, I’m sorry everyone is freaking out, however do take the time to consider that evenintofandomhell’s critiques are not baseless and that if you are drawing inspiration from others’ works that can be easily identified and misinterpreted, you probably should be linking back.
For everyone going stir-crazy over this and disregarding the critique: Stop. If you can not see the blatant similarities between these drawings and think this is just an honest coinkidink mistake, I’m 100% sure you don’t want to engage seriously in this conversation.
That said, I feel like this deserved some bit of commentary by me in hopes that the people who reblogged it can see that this isn’t just referenced artwork, it’s replication without mindful credit where credit is due.
